MI5 has warned that foreign spy agencies are targeting IT workers within big organisations as a means of gaining privileged access to sensitive data.

The security service’s warning about spy-infiltration tactics is a bid to encourage corporations to bolster their defences against such attacks, the FT (via the Daily Mail) reports.

While grooming internal sources with access to highly sensitive information used to take years in the time of the Cold War spymasters, it now takes much less time – basically however long it takes the new recruit to get privileged access to company info… that’s if they don’t have it already.

I would just like to say that I will never be bribed by the offer of hot sex, fine wines, good meals and holidays in the Carribean (even if they were on a large yacht). And I challenge any interested spy agencies to try to prove otherwise.

Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present. Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington State, and maple syrup producers in Vermont are all observing climate-related changes that are outside of recent experience. So, too, are coastal planners in Florida, water managers in the arid Southwest, city dwellers from Phoenix to New York, and Native Peoples on tribal lands from Louisiana to Alaska. This National Climate Assessment concludes that the evidence of human-induced climate change continues to strengthen and that impacts are increasing across the country.

The Vatican released comprehensive statistics for the first time Tuesday on how it has disciplined priests accused of raping and molesting children, saying 848 priests have been defrocked and another 2,572 given lesser sanctions over the past decade.

The Vatican’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, revealed the figures during a second day of grilling by a U.N. committee monitoring implementation of the U.N. treaty against torture.

Tomasi insisted the convention applied only inside the tiny Vatican City state. But he nevertheless released statistics about how the Holy See has adjudicated sex abuse cases globally, and significantly, he didn’t dispute the committee’s contention that sexual violence against children can be considered torture.

Tomasi said that since 2004, more than 3,400 credible cases of abuse had been referred to the Vatican, including 401 cases in 2013 alone. He said that over the last decade, 848 priests had been defrocked, or returned to the lay state by the pope. Another 2,572 were sentenced to a lifetime of penance and prayer or some other lesser sanction, which is often used when the accused priest is elderly or infirm.

And no mention of jail, prison, or arrests. Just, a few thousand have been told to stop it, and almost a thousand loss their job.

After seven years of waiting, Corpus Christi pollution victims finally learned what restitution they’ll be receiving from Citgo Petroleum Corp.: nothing. Last week, a federal district judge determined that residents of a neighborhood exposed to toxic chemicals from Citgo’s Corpus refinery weren’t due any compensation, including medical expenses or relocation costs.

In 2007, a jury convicted Citgo of violating the Clean Air Act, a first for a major oil company. The company had illegally stored oil in two uncovered tanks, exposing nearby residents to toxic chemicals including the carcinogen benzene. It took seven years for U.S. District Judge John D. Rainey to sentence the company, finally ruling in February that Citgo owed $2 million—a paltry sum next to the $1 billion prosecutors argued the company had earned from its illegal operation. Still, victims held out hope for some restitution.

Harbingers’ participation in market research studies might explain why so many failed products make it to stores in the first place. “You see this happening over and over again where managers or product developers think that their product is great because they can find customers who love it,” says Anderson. He continues: “Customers were able to raise their hand early in the process and say, this is a fantastic beer or this is a fantastic shampoo; whatever the product was, customers came back and said they loved it. But then we asked, well what kind of customers said they love it?”